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Will an SDTV tuner work with an HDTV broadcast?

In about 10 months, my current DVR will be useful only as a boat anchor. HD DVRs are not available without some sort of continuous payments to a cable or satellite company. The only thing available are DVRs with SDTV tuners. Unless OTA HD DVR's become available, will an SDTV tuner equipped DVR record an HDTV show, albeit at the lower resolution?

Re: Will an SDTV tuner work with an HDTV broadcast?

Found the answer

From dtv.gov FAQ's

"Your Television

If I want a new TV, will I have to buy a High Definition TV (HDTV) to watch digital broadcast television after the transition?

No. It is important to understand that the DTV transition is a transition from analog broadcasting to digital broadcasting. It is not a transition from analog broadcasting to High Definition broadcasting. Digital broadcasting allows for High Definition broadcasts, but High Definition is not required, and you do not need to buy a HDTV to watch digital TV. A Standard Definition DTV (which is simply a TV with an internal digital tuner), or a digital-to-analog converter box hooked to an analog TV, is all that is required to continue watching over-the-air broadcast television. Digital broadcast television includes Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) formats. You can watch High Definition programming on a Standard Definition DTV (or on an analog TV hooked to a digital-to-analog converter box), but it won’t be in full High Definition quality. It is also important to know that Standard Definition DTVs are comparably priced to similar sized analog TVs."

I would still rather get an HD DVR, but every time a company announces plans to sell one, TiVo sues them. We need a consumer group to sue TiVo for monopolizing the market.

Re: Will an SDTV tuner work with an HDTV broadcast?

Originally Posted by keith3267

Unless OTA HD DVR's become available, will an SDTV tuner equipped DVR record an HDTV show, albeit at the lower resolution?

All current OTA digital TV tuners are able to down-convert an HDTV picture to some lower resolution for display (or storage, where applicable). The same is not true of satellite TV, where most SDTV boxes are not able to convert a larger HDTV picture into anything even remotely watchable, even if all other signal characteristics (such as compression and modulation type) were to happen to match.

HD DVR available again, without paid service

I just got an HD DVR from Dish Network that only does OTR, doesn't work with Dish Network, go figure. Its got two tuners and records about 30 hours of HD or 150 SD. Yo cannot chose, it records what is broadcast. It downloads about a weeks schedule from each of the stations and is easy to select a program to record, not as good as TIVO (or so I've heard) or a unit with the TV guide plus built in, but its OK

Cost is only $250 and its called DTV pal DVR

They also sell a converter box that works with a G-Link. DTV pal plus. I'm getting that next as it will revive my old DVR and it even updates the old box to the new digital TV guide through the use of an alternate zip code. Its about $70, it is coupon eligible but I've already used up my coupons.

I do still use my old DVR for low priority shows, but it has to be programmed manually like the old VCR's and you have to remember to set the channel on the converter box before the show starts, or what ever the converter box is tuned to will get recorded.

But now I do know the answer to my question, an SDTV tuner will record an HD show, but only at the lower SD quality. But thats still better than analog.